ROSA BACKED AWAY SLOWLY.
Jasper lifted his quarterstaff.
Barron sipped a drink that was not there.
“Well?” he asked. “Please don’t disappoint me, child.”
“I’ll check in with Mom,” she said, pleased at how steady her own voice sounded. “I’ll see what we have handy for those cute little appeasement tricks.”
“I am very much obliged,” Barron said, and turned back to his map.
Rosa and Jasper bolted down the stairs. This time they didn’t care how much clattering noise they made.
“He’s dead!” Rosa whisper-shouted as soon as they reached the bottom. “He’s already dead! Going through all his old motions. And talking a lot. I’ve never heard a ghost talk so much. The voices usually fade. Plus they’re stuck with whatever words they said out loud while they were living. Sometimes I say random words, a whole bunch of them, just to make sure I’ll have them later. He must have really loved the sound of his own voice when he was still alive. I wonder when he died. I wonder if he even noticed when it happened. And why is he bleeding green? Never seen anything bleed green before. Mom probably has. But I can’t ask her about it. I mean, I can ask, but she can’t give me any answers.”
“Shhhh,” Jasper shushed.
“Don’t shush me, knight.”
“Copper,” he said.
“What about copper?” she demanded. “Barron had a copper mine down at the end of Isabelle Road. Said so on his map. Plus the name of this stupid town is a pretty sizable hint. Local ghosts are practically allergic to copper. But he isn’t. He’s okay with stealing pipe fixtures from the bathrooms here and patching up his huge circle. He doesn’t mind copper. But why is his blood green?”
“I think he’s made out of copper.” Jasper turned to face the staircase behind them, just in case Barron followed them down. “He’s bleeding copper. Using it instead of iron. We bleed red. The iron in our blood gets rusty when it hits the air. But copper rusts green.”
“Oh,” Rosa said. “Okay.”
“That’s why Mars is red,” he went on. “Lots of iron.”
“Got it,” she said.
“Did you hear about the ghost rivers that Curiosity found on Mars?” he asked.
“Stop talking about Mars!”
“Shhhhh,” said Mrs. Jillynip behind them. “This is a library, children.”
Rosa spun around and very nearly knocked over a stack of rolled-up maps. “You knew,” she said. “You knew about Barron.”
Mrs. Jillynip sniffed. “It is my job to know about him, and to offer him refreshment. Or appeasement, if you like. A little offering of milk and honey. And I would have thought that a city librarian with your vast experience of hauntings wouldn’t be so troubled by one well-respected ghost in our attic. I do hope you haven’t upset him. I asked you not to go upstairs.”
“He’s banished all of the others,” Rosa tried to explain, but Mrs. Jillynip wasn’t having it.
“Go and play somewhere else, the both of you. Children are not permitted in Special Collections. You didn’t sign the clipboard. You are not wearing gloves. And try not to bump any shelves with that stick. Go on.”
She shooed them out and shut the door in their faces.
Rosa didn’t move. She just stood and stared at the door.
“What now?” Jasper asked.
“I didn’t get groceries,” she said softly. “I was supposed to get groceries. We don’t have much in the kitchen. And we skipped lunch. I forgot all about the existence of lunch. Mom is probably hungry. She couldn’t get groceries. She can’t read labels anymore. She doesn’t have a voice, not even inside her own head. We should go get her. And get some food. Plus this building is the precise center of one great big bubble of banishment, and that bubble is going to pop. Soon. So we should probably leave.”
“Probably,” Jasper agreed.
Rosa didn’t move.
“Is your Mom downstairs?” he prompted.
“Yeah,” Rosa said.
“Show me. I didn’t know this place had a basement.”
Rosa made herself move. She led the way to the door and the stairs in the back, and down they went.